Powerful Veil

On the lookout tower of Pearl City.

Zhang Ping and Liu Sishan stood together, both watching the three Tianchang Foxes walking down the street in the distance.

"Sister Sisi, are we here just to watch the Tianchang Foxes kill people?" Zhang Ping asked, frowning at Liu Sishan.

Liu Sishan kept her eyes on the Tianchang Foxes and said calmly, "Keep watching."

The three Tianchang Foxes thought they were walking down a street, but they had actually turned into Arena Square.

Only then did Zhang Ping notice Jin Bo and the others following behind the three Tianchang Foxes.

He immediately realized that they were members of the Cleanup Squad.

Because of the Wind Whisperer, he knew the names and abilities of most Cleanup Squad members, but he had never met them, so he could not match faces to names.

Only after they revealed their abilities could he match their names to their faces.

"You're going after those three Tianchang Foxes?" Zhang Ping guessed.

Liu Sishan shook her head. "No. This is only a test. The Moon Prince you mentioned before is the real priority. We need all the information we can get on the Moon Prince."

"You want to lure it into acting, but will it come?" Zhang Ping looked toward the distant City Lord's Manor.

The Tianchang Foxes had now all withdrawn into the City Lord's Manor, waiting for the mutated beasts to invade. Their goal was to throw Pearl City into chaos first.

Once all the powerful humans made their move, they would wipe them out in one go.

What they needed were not wild beasts, but livestock!

Liu Sishan said indifferently, "It doesn't matter. If it doesn't come, it doesn't come."

If it did not come.

Then the three Tianchang Foxes would undoubtedly die.

If it came.

It might not be able to save them either.

Activating the Illusory Light Veil had multiple purposes. One of them was to trap the Tianchang Foxes to death. As long as they dared to come out, however many came would be killed.

Although this was only a temporary solution and would become useless the moment the Moon King awakened, it was at least very useful for now.

The battle was about to begin.

Countless golden lightning patterns appeared across Jin Bo's body, while all his hair stood on end and gleamed with golden light.

"Wow, Super Saiyan!"

Zhang Ping was startled when he saw the scene.

This was the first time he had personally seen Jin Bo fight. Although he knew quite a bit about Jin Bo through the Wind Whisperer, there was still an enormous difference between knowing and witnessing it firsthand.

Jin Bo's ability was called Golden Blood.

This ability gave his blood a wide variety of uses, and this transformation was one of them.

In addition, his blood was rich in vitality. It could rapidly heal wounds, grant immunity to most poisons, and even restore the elderly to youth so long as there was enough blood.

He had almost no weaknesses.

The only thing that could kill him was an enemy of a higher rank.

He made his move.

Jin Bo's muscles bulged all over his body, and the golden patterns looked like real lightning. He stepped forward and hurled his fist at the target with full force.

Faced with the attack, Moon One reacted the fastest.

The instant Jin Bo approached, it turned around, but it saw nothing. The Illusory Light Veil blocked its vision.

Yet the moment Jin Bo's fist broke through the veil, its hands flashed up in front of it. Then it was blasted dozens of meters away by a single punch, its body slamming heavily into the arena's concrete and forcibly turning the mouth-shaped arena into a concave shape.

As Jin Bo launched his attack, the other two Cleanup Squad combatants moved at the same time.

Moon Two and Moon Three were even more unlucky than Moon One.

The ones attacking them were combatants Lu Han and Ding Chen.

Ding Chen's ability was Cutting Light, an extremely pure offensive ability.

His eyes could fire icy blue rays. Those rays carried no heat whatsoever, but possessed terrifying cutting power.

Lu Han's ability was Psychic Control.

Psychic energy naturally generated within his body. He could control this energy with his will, and attaching it to weapons could greatly enhance their nature. He could even remotely control flying swords and play the role of a sword immortal.

Both of them were Awakened with high offense and low defense.

Caught off guard, Moon Two lost an arm outright and was also blinded in one eye.

Its arm had been struck by the beam from Ding Chen's right eye, while its blinded eye had been hit by the beam from his left. If it had not jerked its head aside at the last moment, it would not merely have lost an eye—its head would have been pierced through instantly.

Meanwhile, Lu Han slashed a deep bloody wound across Moon Three's chest. It collapsed to the ground, taking more breaths out than in, not far from death.

Roar!

Seeing this, Moon One immediately let out an enraged roar.

All three humans were covered by a layer of veil. In Moon One's eyes, they did not appear human, but as three powerful White Apes.

If its opponents had been humans, it would certainly have tried to disrupt them with words. But against fellow Mutated Beasts, it could only compete in strength.

"End this quickly!"

Without speaking, Jin Bo gestured to the other two with one hand before charging at Moon One.

The moment they closed in, both threw punches at each other's heads. Moon One stood three and a half meters tall, with arms two meters long, so it clearly held the advantage.

The problem was that what it saw was a false image of Jin Bo.

In its eyes, Jin Bo was a three-meter-tall White Giant Ape. Therefore, it attacked a point roughly three meters above the ground, but Jin Bo was nowhere near that tall, causing Moon One's punch to miss.

Then Jin Bo's punch struck its jaw. Its teeth shattered instantly, and its body was launched into the air.

The rest of the battle held no suspense.

One mistake led to mistake after mistake.

Jin Bo punched wildly, as if venting all the anger he had accumulated during this time onto Moon One. Moon One's arms were broken, its internal organs were smashed apart, and every inch of its body was pounded.

"It's here. Withdraw!"

At that moment, the member keeping watch spoke.

Jin Bo gave the unconscious Moon One one last look, crushed its head beneath his foot, then immediately turned and left.

All the Cleanup Squad members were hidden by veils around their bodies and vanished beyond the square in the blink of an eye.

"So strong!"

Zhang Ping stared at the square, deeply shaken.

The entire Arena Square looked as though it had been bombarded by artillery more than a dozen times. The three Tianchang Fox corpses were an even more horrific sight. This time, Jin Bo and the others had deliberately left the bodies behind.

"Looks like we overestimated the Tianchang Foxes' strength," Liu Sishan said.

They had originally thought Jin Bo and the others would face a hard battle against opponents of the same rank, but the Tianchang Foxes had instead been instantly killed.

"No. They simply weren't willing to tear off the human skin on their foreheads. Once they tear it off, they won't be so easy to deal with," Zhang Ping said.

Through the Wind Whisperer, he knew that the human skin attached to the Tianchang Foxes' foreheads was actually one of the conditions for activating their abilities.

As long as the Tianchang Foxes still had human skin attached to their foreheads, it meant they were maintaining their abilities. This was actually a form of weakening. If they tore off that skin and completely unleashed their abilities, they would be much harder to fight.

At that point, the battle would become extremely bizarre, practically turning into a pure battle of illusions.

After all, the Tianchang Foxes were psychic-type mutated beasts. Close combat had never been their specialty.

As Zhang Ping spoke, the Moon Prince suddenly descended from the sky and landed directly in Arena Square.

In truth, the Moon Prince had sensed the fluctuations of battle the instant Jin Bo began fighting Moon One and the others, but it had been unable to find the exact location.

It had already flown into the air, but even looking down from above, it had failed to locate the battlefield.

It was not until Moon Two and Moon Three were killed that it locked onto the location by the smell of blood.

But it was clearly too late.

The Moon Prince stood among the three corpses, its aura becoming extremely terrifying.

In the distance, Zhang Ping was just about to use Appraisal Technique when a dreadful premonition suddenly arose within him. He even vaguely seemed to see an image: the moment he activated Appraisal Technique, his head would be smashed apart by a tail in the next second.

"I can't use Appraisal Technique!"

Zhang Ping clenched his fists tightly, his forehead covered in sweat.

"What's wrong?" Liu Sishan looked at Zhang Ping and asked.

Gritting his teeth, Zhang Ping said, "My ability will alert it. Unless someone keeps it occupied, I'll die."

"..."

Liu Sishan frowned slightly. They were over a thousand meters away from the Moon Prince, and even that was not safe?

On the other side, the Moon Prince's aura grew increasingly terrifying. Suddenly, a hand grabbed its ankle. It immediately crouched down and looked at Moon Three. Blood was still flowing from Moon Three's chest as it opened its mouth.

"Don't speak. I'll heal you." The Moon Prince wanted to tear off the human skin on its forehead.

But Moon Three stopped it. The Moon King was currently asleep, and once Prince Yue tore off the human skin, it would be exposed. Without the Moon King's power supporting it, no matter how powerful Prince Yue was, it could not withstand a human siege.

"White Apes... The ones who attacked... us... were the White Ape Clan," Moon Three panted, stubbornly forcing out the last of its words.

After speaking, the light in its eyes gradually faded, and its aura vanished completely.

White Ape?

The Moon Prince had thought they were humans. They had turned out to be white apes?

It doubted Moon Three's words, but Moon Three had endured until it arrived. There was no way it would provide false intelligence.

The Tianchang Foxes themselves were psychic-type mutated beasts with extremely high resistance to illusions and hypnosis. It did not believe any enemy could hypnotize Moon Three.

Had the White Ape Clan entered Pearl City?

The Moon Prince pondered this, feeling that something was wrong.

Meanwhile, Zhang Ping and Liu Sishan came down from the lookout tower, and Liu Sishan led him toward the outskirts of the city.

"Sister Sisi, where are we going?" Zhang Ping quickened his pace and caught up with Liu Sishan.

"The veil can only last a week at most. We only have a week, so we must find a way to understand the Moon Prince's strength. I don't know how strong you need to become before you can use your ability on the Moon Prince, but your current level is obviously too low," Liu Sishan replied as she walked.

"So?" Zhang Ping asked, confused.

Liu Sishan said calmly, "The fastest way for an Awakened to level up is through battle. So for the next five days, I'll take you through combat training. We'll spend the remaining day returning and looking for an opportunity to confirm the Moon Prince's ability. I hope you'll have grown strong enough by then."

"Can I not go?" Zhang Ping asked with some reluctance.

Liu Sishan answered, "You can. But the next time the Tianchang Foxes target you, I won't save you again."

"Fine, I'll go."

What else could Zhang Ping say? Although he was reluctant, his resistance was not particularly firm.

Then he thought of Soul of Iron and the Beast King Martial Arts Academy, asking, "What about my job at Soul of Iron and my classes at the Beast King Martial Arts Academy?"

"I already had Wang Jieming request leave for you," Liu Sishan answered.

In truth, Zhang Ping did not reject any method of increasing his strength. He simply did not want to hand the initiative for his training over to Liu Sishan. After all, Liu Sishan did not know his exact circumstances, and the battles she arranged might not help him much.

But with things having reached this point, Zhang Ping could only follow Liu Sishan out of the city.